RIAS Kammerchor Berlin II / Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin II

Maurice Duruflé commented that he had composed the Requiem on “the basis of Gregorian themes from the funeral mass […]. In certain places, the musical text has been adopted in full and the orchestral part provides support and a commentary; in other places, I have merely allowed myself to be inspired by this music.” At the same time, the French composer dispensed with the drama of the Dies irae and focused in his impressionistic and shimmering orchestral colouring on angels with their “heavenly” harps and the depiction of Paradise illustrated by the sounds of the celesta and organ.

Alfred Schnittke also created an overtly introverted setting of the timeless funeral mass text, although the score shows no sign of impressionistic tonal effects. Strangely enough, the composer developed the work out of incidental music for Friedrich Schiller’s Don Carlos while still based in the Soviet Union. This music was created in 1975 “in the form of a requiem” (Schnittke) for a production at the Moscow Mossovet Theatre which was to be performed against the background of Catholic ecclesiastical music. Echoing the deeply tragic plot of Schiller’s drama, this incidental music developed into an incomparable requiem setting – not merely due to its unusual orchestral forces which include organ, piano, celesta, vibraphone, bells, gong, flexatone, timpani, trumpet, trombone and two electric guitars. Tentative sections in piano and whispering choral passages in the style of a litany are juxtaposed by solo coloraturas and organ clusters built up stepwise throughout the fourteen movements in which the consistently spectral sounds of Schnittke’s polystylistic method are ever-present.